Crew, mission details for Inspiration4 revealed
A historic space mission supporting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital now has its full crew, who began training this week.
Inspiration4 revealed its final two crew members and other details of the first all-civilian space mission during a livestreamed event Tuesday at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
In addition to St. Jude physician assistant Hayley Arceneaux and mission commander Jared Isaacman, Arizona entrepreneur Sian Proctor and Washington aerospace industry employee Christopher Sembroski will be part of the crew.
What the Inspiration4 mission will do
The Inspiration4 crew will launch from NASA'S Kennedy Space Center via Spacex's Falcon 9 rocket to begin the roughly three-day mission no earlier than Sept. 15.
The crew will be monitored by Spacex mission control as their Dragon spacecraft orbits Earth every 90 minutes. The Dragon spacecraft is the same one currently attached to the International Space Station for Spacex's Crew-1 mission.
Inspiration4 aims to reach an orbit of 540 kilometers (about 336 miles) during the mission and is working to find scientific research opportunities while in orbit. This orbit is further than any human space mission since the last servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope, Isaacman said. Extending further out into space is a step in the right direction for future missions to the moon and Mars, he added.
The Inspiration4 crew will reenter the Earth's atmosphere to land in water
off Florida's coast.
Crew members playing specific roles
The crew was set to begin training for the first time together Wednesday, Isaacman said.
Crew member training will focus on operating in microgravity and zero gravity, orbital mechanics and other stress tests, per a news release. They will also get “emergency preparedness training, spacesuit and spacecraft ingress and egress exercises, as well as partial- and full-mission simulations,” it said.
Isaacman said he hopes for a day when “fishing buddies” can take an accessible flight to space, but the all-civilian Inspiration4 mission won't cut any corners on intensive space training.
“You've got to get the first mission right for all the others to follow,” he said. “…We're not taking any shortcuts with any of the training that's going along with this. We want to earn this position.”
Each crew member will play a different role in the mission.
h Isaacman: The 38-year-old founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments is Inspiration4's
mission commander. An experienced jet pilot, Isaacman has flown in more than 100 airshows as part of the Black Diamond Jet Team.
h Arceneaux: The 29-year-old cancer survivor and former St. Jude patient is a physician assistant at the hospital in Memphis. She will serve as the mission's medical officer, overseeing medical care and experiments.
h Proctor: The 51-year-old trained pilot, who got her seat by being the top entrant in an online business competition, will serve as the mission pilot. She will also back up the commander, Isaacman, and support related mission needs.
h Sembroski: The 41-year-old Lockheed Martin employee and Air Force veteran, who got his seat by being the winner of a sweepstakes benefiting St. Jude, will serve as the mission specialist. He will help in managing payload, science experiments, mission control communications and more.
Reach Max Garland at max.garland @commercialappeal.com or 901-5292651 and Twitter @Maxgarlandtypes.